Streams in the Desert

Streams in the Desert

This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel, the one who formed him, concerning things to come: “How dare you question me about my children! How dare you tell me what to do with the work of my own hands! (Isa 45:11)

Our Lord spoke in this tone when He said, “Father, I will.” Joshua used it when, in the supreme moment of triumph, he lifted up his spear toward the setting sun, and cried, “Sun, stand thou still!”

Elijah used it when he shut the heavens for three years and six months, and again opened them.

Luther used it when, kneeling by the dying Melanchthon, he forbade death to take his prey.

It is a marvelous relationship into which God bids us enter. We are familiar with words like those which follow in this paragraph: “I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.” But that God should invite us to command Him, this is a change in relationship which is altogether startling!

What a difference there is between this attitude and the hesitating, halting, unbelieving prayers to which we are accustomed, and which by their perpetual repetition lose edge and point!

How often during His earthly life did Jesus put men into a position to command Him! When entering Jericho, He stood still, and said to the blind beggars:

“What will ye that I shall do unto you?” It was as though He said, “I am yours to command.”

Can we ever forget how He yielded to the Syrophenician woman the key to His resources and told her to help herself even as she would?

What mortal mind can realize the full significance of the position to which our God lovingly raises His little children? He seems to say, “All my resources are at your command.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.”
—F. B. Meyer

Say to this mountain, “Go,
Be cast into the sea”;
And doubt not in thine heart
That it shall be to thee.
It shall be done, doubt not His Word,
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Claim thy redemption right,
Purchased by precious blood;
The Trinity unite
To make it true and good.
It shall be done, obey the Word
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Self, sickness, sorrow, sin,
The Lord did meet that day
On His beloved One,
And thou art “loosed away.”
It has been done, rest on His Word,
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Compass the frowning wall
With silent prayer, then raise—
Before its ramparts fall—
The victor’s shout of praise.
It shall be done, faith rests assured,
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

The two-leaved gates of brass,
The bars of iron yield,
To let the faithful pass,
Conquerors in every field.
It shall be done, the foe ignored,
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Take then the faith of God,
Free from the taint of doubt;
The miracle-working rod
That casts all reasoning’ out.
It shall be done, stand on the Word,
Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!
—Selected

Requirements of Waiting.....Dr. Charles Stanley

Requirements of Waiting

Dr. Charles Stanley

Psalms 25:3-5

Waiting for God's timing is neither passive nor idle--it takes discipline and commitment. I can think of four basic requirements for successful waiting.

Faith. The Lord's ways and timing are nothing like ours (Isa. 55:8-9). From a human standpoint, He usually does things in a totally different way than we expect. But as we trust Him more, we'll discover that His approach isn't so strange after all. And when we live in harmony with God's will, His timing starts to make sense.

Humility. To wait for the Lord, you must be convinced of your need for Him. Submission to His divine will requires humility--you cannot charge ahead with your own plans and at the same time be fully surrendered to God.

Patience. Are you willing to remain in your current position until you receive clear divine direction? Pausing for clarity from God does not mean that you disengage and allow circumstances to fall apart around you. Waiting upon the Lord is a deliberate decision that requires patience.

Courage. Waiting for God often takes courage, especially when there is pressure to act. If you're not careful, you might stop listening to the Lord and follow other advice. So keep your ear attuned to the voice of Almighty God, and you won t go wrong.

Waiting upon the Lord is one of the wisest, most important decisions we make in life. And contrary to popular assumptions, it is an active endeavor that requires faith, humility, patience, and courage. When you rely upon God and wait for His timing, the various facets of life fall into place.

LOVED. In the Loss

LOVED. In the Loss
CINDY BULTEMA

“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39 (NIV)

My gut-punch arrived with a phone call.

My fiancé David and I were in the midst of planning a dream wedding. I had the sparkly dress, the bridesmaids, the church, the DJ. Then five months before our perfect wedding day, and two weeks before Christmas, one phone call changed everything.

My brother delivered the tragic news: David was in a freak and fatal workplace accident. The rest of the night was a blur as I wept, wailed and threw myself on my hardwood floor. I couldn’t catch my breath or formulate a single sentence that didn’t end with a question mark. Why, God, why? How can You allow this? Where are You? I thought You loved me?

Don’t you wish we would receive a notification, a warning, anything to alert us when everything is about to instantly change? But life doesn’t work that way, and loss doesn’t politely knock on the door to see if this is a good time to turn your life upside down.

Instead, loss often shows up with a life-changing blow that drops us to our knees, gasping for breath. It might be a devastating doctor’s report, betrayal from a close friend or family member, a marriage mess, a virus that veers your perfect plans off-course, a family feud, or an email reporting the seasonal layoff is now permanent.

Though your loss might look very different than mine, we all face the same choice: Will we choose Truth? Will we believe God is good and that He loves us? Will we trust the changeless One when everything has changed?

It’s one thing to say, “I am loved” when selecting a wedding cake and planning a tropical honeymoon. It’s quite another to declare it when standing next to a casket at your fiancé’s funeral. But friend, no matter the loss, it doesn’t change God’s love for us. As we stand with a thousand question marks, we can still have one sure confidence: Our deep pain cannot separate us from God’s deep love. Period.

It’s not just wishful thinking; it’s God’s Word! Romans 8:39 reminds us that “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Do you know what this means? It means NOTHING can separate you from God’s love!

No cancer, credit card debt or coronavirus can separate you from God’s steadfast love. Friend, you are loved. Period.

No doubts, divorce or disaster can dilute His love or detach you from the One who counts your tears, sees your fears and is always near. You are loved. Period.

Your loss might knock you to your knees, but it cannot pluck you from His hand.

In seasons of loss, remember, friend, you always have a choice. Let God’s promises be your oxygen tank and His love be the one sure place you can stand in the chaos of questions. He is with you, He is for you, and He loves you. Period.

Dear God, thank You for Your great love for me every moment of my life, including in seasons of loss and confusion. Even when my eyes are blurred by tears, help me to clearly see You and Your lavish love for me. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:
1 John 3:1a, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (NIV)

           

The Bible Is Not a Cheat Sheet

The Bible Is Not a Cheat Sheetby Ryan Duncan

Teach me, LORD, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end. Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Psalm 119:33-34

I have a confession to make. Back when I was still in school, I attended a chemistry class that I hated. The building was cold and smelled like chemicals. The lessons were slow, with hours of homework assigned afterwards. On top of everything, I had never been good at chemistry, and my frustration usually boiled over faster than our science solutions did.

The class did have one upside though; the way the room was set up allowed me a perfect view of the desks in front of me. So, whenever an exam was held, I cheated. I used a variety of excuses to justify this. Chemistry wasn't my gift, so why should my GPA suffer? The answers were there, they were available, why shouldn't I use them? Who cares how I got the answers so long as they're the right ones?

It was only later that I realized my mistake. Sure, I knew the correct answers, but I didn't understand how the formulas constructed those answers. Without that, my knowledge of chemistry was surface level at best. I was completely and utterly lost.

I think sometimes we like to use the Bible as a cheat sheet. When the world confronts us with a problem, we open our Bibles and yell, "See, the Bible says it's wrong, end of story!" But the Bible was meant to serve as a textbook, not a cheat sheet. If we don't study God's word, we won't understand why Jesus said the things he did. We fail to ask questions, and we breeze through passages without taking time to consider their meaning. We are, quite frankly, bad students.

Try to think of it this way. Before a doctor can heal a person's illness, they must first understand the disease at work. They have to understand where it came from, what affect it has on the patient's body, what types of treatment can fix the problem, why those treatments work, and which of the treatments is best for the patient. If the doctor does not understand this, there is a good chance they'll end up hurting their patient. God calls us to be healers and lights to the world, but without understanding his word first, we become heavy-handed.

We must not be afraid to question our faith. Instead, we must study it with an open mind and faithful heart. That way, when the real exam comes, we pass with flying colors.

Intersecting Faith and Life

What questions do you have about the Bible? Take some time to talk them over with a friend or pastor.

Further Reading: Psalm 119

When We Are Slowed to a Stop

When We Are Slowed to a Stop
By Meg Bucher

“I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.” - Galatians 2:2b NIV

The empty pages of my running journal smelled like a slice of heaven. I couldn’t wait to fill them with miles and routes, splits and workouts. But it wouldn’t be that way, not this time. This time, my twenty-year-old running injuries would catch up to me, resurfacing and lingering.

Today’s verse speaks of running, a hobby close to my heart, a very big part of who I am. It was only in learning to let it go that I realized I could survive without it. I’m learning, as I walk with Christ, that I can survive without anything but Him. In Greek (the language the New Testament is written in), “to run” is the word “trecho.”

According to Strong's Concordance, 'trecho' means to exert one’s self and strive hard. The word occurs in Greek writings to denote extreme peril, which requires the exertion of all one’s effort to overcome.

This kind of striving is the opposite of passivity. In Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary, trechō means “to run” in both a physical sense and a figurative sense. Trechō is used several times to picture the Christian life in the sense of running toward a goal (1 Cor. 9:26c; Gal 2:2; 5:7; Phil 2:16; Heb 12:1). Passivity is not a virtue in the Christian life. 

Passivity is taking all of the wisdom God’s given us throughout our trials, and suppressing it. Barreling on with one solution after the next …none of them working. While Jesus waves His hand in front of our faces to stop, passivity is thinking that we can fix everything without Him.

Walking with Christ is hard. We get knocked down, stripped of things that we identify with and felt once identified us. People leave our lives. Death is an everyday reality. And if we can’t find God in those situations, we have fallen victim to a passive attitude about who God is and what He promises.

He is good. And He knows what’s good for us. His plan for us is good. The way we identify ourselves is not always the same way He sees us. Being open to His version of who were made to be and what we are here to accomplish starts by believing in Jesus. Walking with Him doesn’t always make sense to us, but we can trust that we are being made holy, one stride at at time, until we break the tape in heaven.

Father, Praise You for our losses and our trials. Thank You for the things You strip from us that we think we need more than You. Forgive our flipped perspective of control, and bless us to lift it entirely up to You.

 In Jesus’ Name, 

Amen.

A Prayer for When You Don’t Know What to Pray

A Prayer for When You Don’t Know What to PrayBy Jennifer O. White

Last week, I was at a loss for words when it came to praying for a friend. Have you been there?

Thankfully, Jesus knows exactly what to pray in these moments. He knew I didn't have words, so He gave me vision of how to pray. The person I wanted to pray for has more than one illness that affects his brain. The picture God gave me was of my hands holding this man's head and letting it soak in a pool of healing water.

The water represented God, the Healer and the living Water. (Jeremiah 2:13, 17:14; John 7:38)

Holding his head was a picture of intercession. It is reminiscent of the four men who carried their frail friend to see Jesus and even made a hole through the roof to get him in front of Jesus. (Luke 5:19) It is my simple role in the process of praying for him.

I believe God is able to use this prayer for His glory to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we know how to ask of Him. (Ephesians 3:20) He offered this prayer to me when I did not know what to ask of Him.

The mind of an intercessor is certainly in the battle. Satan may work to steal our words, but God triumphs over that scheme with a simple and powerful alternative. For me it was an image, what will it be for you? A song, a word, a Scripture, something else?

When you don’t know what to pray, ask God to give you an intercessory prayer. Ask Him to move and work. Here is a prayer you can pray when you just don’t know what to pray:

Lord God, I am at a loss for words. I’m not sure how to pray for this difficult situation, but I know you promise that you hear our prayers, so I want to try praying now. Please be our comfort, our support, our strength and our shield. Please help us overcome all that the enemy tries to throw our way. Help us depend on your and find great joy and peace from your presence. Thank you for always loving us and never leaving us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!